The invention relates generally to stored value fund transactions, and more particularly relates to transferring money between parties with a network-accessible stored value fund.
One party may wish to transfer money to herself, a counter party, or vice versa, for any of a variety of reasons. For example, the payee may have sold an auction item to the payor. Frequently, a payor party owes a debt to a payee party. The debt may be an informal IOU or a more formal transaction. Other times, the payor may wish to give the money to the payee as a gift. For example, a corporation may give a number of employees a $50 check, gift certificate or coupon as a holiday present or bonus.
On-line services provide electronic transfers using a credit card or bank account. Money passes from a credit card or bank account of a first party to the on-line service where it is distributed to a credit card or bank account of a second party. Money may be held in the system during this process in a stored value fund. Manual interaction with the on-line service allows transfers of money to and from this stored value fund. An example of this type of service is available at MoneyZap.com.™
Organizations often offer to send an employees paycheck to one or more accounts of their choosing through a process called direct deposit. The employee can specify an amount or percentage to go to one or more accounts. Other things are deducted from the paycheck such as the cost of tools, uniforms, etc. In some cases, a third party may enforce a judicial garnishment against the paycheck such that the third party is paid from the paycheck.
Escrow is used in some situations such as the payment of tax and insurance on property subject to a security interest. The loan company gathers extra money with each payment to fund an escrow account. Tax and insurance payments are deducted from this account. In this way, the loan company can be sure taxes and insurance are paid to protect their security interest.
In the appended figures, similar components and/or features may have the same reference label. Further, various components of the same type may be distinguished by following the reference label by a dash and a second label that distinguishes among the similar components. If only the first reference label is used in the specification, the description is applicable to any one of the similar components having the same first reference label irrespective of the second reference label.